Transcript From Classical to Contemporary

Revising the Testament
HUM 2051: Civilization I
Fall 2010
Dr. Perdigao
October 25, 2010
Rise and Fall
• After Augustus’ death in 14 AD, four emperors related to him or third wife
Livia (Perry 146)
• Julio-Claudian dynasty, rule from 14 AD to 68 AD
• Ends with suicide of Nero
• Anarchy follows, civil war: Vespasian (69-79 AD), Flavian dynasty
• Constructs Colosseum
• Judea, Roman rule clashes with Jewish “religious-national sentiments”
(Perry 147)
• Pontius Pilate, Roman procurator in Judea, pagan idol in holy city
Jerusalem
• Caligula’s statue in Jerusalem’s temple (Perry 147)
• Sought liberation from Rome in 66 AD
• Roman armies captured Jerusalem and destroyed temple in 70 AD
• Mount Vesuvius eruption, Pompeii and Herculaneum
• Flavian dynasty ends in 96 AD with assassination of Domitian
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Marcus Aurelius (161-180 Ad), Stoic; Germanic threat
“Five Good Emperors” from 96 AD to 180 AD
Empire at height of power and prosperity
Commodus succeeds Marcus Aurelius, ends Pax Romana
Roman community from Britain to Arabian Desert, fifty to sixty million
people (Perry 150)
Roman peace, justice, civilization
Ideal of Greek city-state— “protection and promotion of civilized life” (151)
Livy’s History of Rome, glorification of Augustus, Roman morality
Stoicism—emphasis on reason and highest good in this world, not afterlife
Ptolemy, mathematician, geographer, astronomer, Galen, medicine and
anatomy
ENGINEERING (Perry 154)
Law
Classical humanism replaced by mythic-religious movements; from reason
onward (Perry 157)
Means of dealing with feelings of loneliness, anxiety, impotence,
alienation, boredom (Perry 158)
• Decline of Rome—military anarchy, raid by Germanic tribes, burden by
economic dislocations, presence of Eastern religions (Perry 160)
• Diocletian (285-305 AD)and Constantine (306-337 AD), eastern and
western parts, attempted to enforce centralized government as response;
Rome became “bureaucratic, regimented, and militarized state” (Perry 162)
• Augustus—commonwealth as fostering good life for individual; Diocletian,
individual lives for the state (Perry 162)
• Order versus chaos
• The Huns—nomadic people from central Asia—sent Visigoths to Rome;
Visigoths, upset at treatment by Roman officials, took up arms (Perry 1623)
• 410 AD, Rome plundered by Visigoths
• 451 AD, Attila led Huns into Gaul, defeated
• 455 AD, Vandals sack Rome
• 476 AD, Germanic officers overthrew Roman emperor Romulus,
signifying end of Roman Empire
• Reasons: Germanic tribes, political and military considerations, economics,
and spiritual issues
• Single Christian society as new model (Perry 167)
Placing Faith
• Old Testament=Christian Bible (covenant)
• New Testament=Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, The Epistles, and
Revelation
• “Bipartite structure”—Christian understanding of fulfillment of history
and completion
• Birth and crucifixion of Jesus—transcending events of Old Testament
• Moses—as prefiguring Jesus, typology
• Jewish belief—history as open-ended
• Christian—looking backward, earlier events giving meaning
Followings
• Jesus (4 BCE-29 CE) executed during reign of Tiberius (who succeeded
Augustus) (Perry 171)
• Like Socrates, wrote nothing and nothing was written about him during
his lifetime (Perry 174)
• As “threat to ancient traditions” (Perry 175)
• After death, emergence of Christianity, name given: Christ (Lord’s
Anointed, the Messiah) (Perry 175); Apostles who preach the gospel about
Christ
• Saint Paul (5-67 CE)—disseminating teachings, emergence of Christianity
• Originates in 1st century CE, grows in third, becomes official religion of
Roman Empire at the end of the fourth century (under Theodosius I in 392
CE)
• Initially persecution in empire because they preached allegiance to God and
not Rome (Perry 180) but did not threaten religion, might have
strengthened it
Dissemnination
• 313 CE—Constantine issues Edict of Milan, toleration to Christians (Perry
181)
• Success due to its combination of “a historic Judaic monotheism” with
“Greek rational philosophy” (Perry 181)
• Christian writings—Mark (66-70 CE) from oral tradition to writing;
Matthew and Luke writing after Mark; final Gospel written by John (110
CE)
• Council of Nicaea (325 CE)—bishops settle controversy that God and
Christ are the same; Nicene Creed, official church doctrine (Perrey 185)
Transitions
• Christianity in Late Roman Empire as official religion
• Christianity vs. Classical Humanism
• With emergence of Christianity, “Life’s purpose was no longer to achieve
excellence in this world through the full and creative development of
human capacities, but to attain salvation in a heavenly city” (Perry 191).
• “In the classical view, history had no ultimate end, no ultimate meaning;
periods of happiness and misery repeated themselves endlessly. In the
Christian view, history is filled with spiritual meaning” (Perry 191).
History spans time from fall of Adam and Eve—leads to return of Christ
and eradication of evil
Language and Audience
• Classical Hebrew, Aramaic, Semitic, Greek—four languages spoken at
time
• Latin—language of government (for Judea, Roman province, first century
BCE)
• Four Gospels—Greek
• Matthew—to Jewish public, convince Jesus is Messiah announced by
Hebrew prophets
• Mark—to Gentile audience, needs of Roman reader (translation)
• Luke—cultured Greek readers
Evolutions
• Luke 2: Nazareth, Galilee, Jerusalem: “Did you not know that I must be in
my father’s house?” (1085)
• Matthew 5-7: “Be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect” (1087); “the
multitudes were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who
has authority, and not like their own scribes” (1089)
• Matthew 13: “Because it is given to you to understand the secrets of the
Kingdom of Heaven, but to them it is not given . . . Therefore I talk in
parables, because they have sight but do not see, and hearing but do not
hear or understand” (1091); “I will open my mouth in parables, and pour
out what has been hidden since the creation” (1091)
Tripartite Structure
• Matthew 26: Judas Iscariot (foundation for Dante’s Satan); “Truly I tell
you that on this night before the cock crows you will disown me three
times” (1092); Peter’s vow; Gethsemane
• Matthew 27: “Over his head they put the label giving the charge against
him, where it was written: This is Jesus, the King of the Jews” (1095);
alongside two robbers; sixth hour—darkness, “My God, my God, why have
you forsaken me?” (1095); “the veil of the temple was split in two from top
to bottom, and the earth was shaken, and the rocks were split, and the
tombs opened and many bodies of the holy sleepers rose up; and after his
resurrection they came out of their tombs and went into the holy city, and
were seen by many . . . After three days I shall rise up” (1096)
Revelation
• Matthew 28: “All authority has been given to me, in heaven and on earth.
Go out, therefore, and instruct all the nations, baptizing them in the name
of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all
that I have taught you. And behold, I am with you, all the days until the
end of the world” (1097)